The Silver Bullet Problem
by Escape Trampoline
Summary: When you're a werewolf, striking a partnership with a notorious vampire criminal sentenced to exile shouldn't even be an option. But when you're a selfish half-werewolf, those rules get thrown out the window. As fate would have it, that's just what Shiena happened to be.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Someone asked me to write a vampire/werewolf AU and I got carried away. **

* * *

The humans' territory was much quieter at night than her old home was. For a long while there was little Shiena did other than pace around aimlessly, filtering out occasional catcalls and provocative whistles from people across the streets. While the occurrence was rare, there were also a few times she was forced to physically fight off a few especially stubborn individuals, which was barely a problem even in human form. Having superhuman strength had its perks.

On the same night she took a cheap-looking steel pocketknife from one of these stubborn individuals, Shiena took a seat near a bus stop, cautiously running a finger over the flat of the blade to make sure it wasn't silver. Feeling no burn or sting on her fingertip, she was about to pocket it, when she picked up a voice from behind her, small, lifeless and weak. The voice of a dying girl.

She hated how it managed to send a chill up her spine while still being strangely compelling, almost as if it was physically pulling Shiena backward by a leash. Sitting frozen on her seat, she waited to hear it a second time before making any movements.

A few painful seconds passed, and it returned with a hint of underlying desperation.

"Help me…"

The moon was fullest on that night, and at the zenith when Shiena was spoken to. She should've felt stronger than she did at that moment. But she didn't, so she moved toward the voice with short, puppet-like movements. It led her to a dark space between two brick buildings, deep inside an alleyway do dark that she was only able to walk through it with her enhanced sight. As she advanced, the metallic and sickeningly familiar stench of blood gradually became stronger. Her breath hitched when she found her.

The girl who owned the voice had green eyes, half-lidded, and long, jet black hair that contrasted sharply with how colorless her skin was. A ray of moonlight reflected off the side of the large knife jutting out of her chest, fighting through a flowing coat of blood that dripped down to her skirt. If it weren't for the weak twitching of her fingers and the slight movement her hand made toward Shiena, she would've easily mistaken it for a fresh corpse.

"Please…" The weakness of her voice grated on Shiena's ears and made the air turn colder, yet it was just as persuasive as before. "…come closer…"

Somehow Shiena was able to find her voice. "No," she said softly. "Y-You need an ambulance. Right now."

"There's not enough… time for that…" said the dying girl, who managed to reach toward Shiena. "You need to know something… Please listen…"

Hesitantly, Shiena submitted, crouching so close to the girl that she had to be careful not to bump the knife handle. "What is it?"

A cold hand gripped Shiena's shoulder as the girl moved closer, until Shiena could feel shallow breaths against her ear. Her voice came in a bizarrely serene whisper. "Thank you."

Shiena heard the nauseating squelch of moving flesh before she saw the knife being pulled out of the girl's chest. Reflexively, her legs tensed to back away, but the grip on her shoulder was like iron, and the next instant, she saw the flash of teeth displayed in a wide grin before feeling a searing pain on the side of her neck. Seconds later, she was choking on her own screams, crumpling onto the body of her attacker while scraping at her back. The burning sensation from her neck began to travel down her veins in slow waves, dulling and sharpening at short intervals. As soon as she found the mind to do so, she bit back onto the other girl's cold neck, both to help stomach the pain and as a feeble attempt at retaliation.

To her shock, it was met with a low moan and a pause in the pulsing in her veins.

It took what felt like hours until Shiena finally felt her neck get released as the last waved of pain coursed through her body. Her breaths came in uneven, heavy gasps and her limbs were shaking and nearly numb, but somehow she was able to feel the girl's arms around her torso, holding onto her to lick at the thin stream of blood that trickled down the wound on Shiena's neck.

Once Shiena's breathing returned to normal and her blood no longer dripped down her neck, she began to regain her strength, and at the same time, the girl tossed her to the ground, licking her lips in satisfaction.

"I hope you're okay with dying here," she said, smiling as she looked down at Shiena's drained body. "Maybe if you find me after you wake up, I'll pay you back and lead you to the other vampires. Good night." Chuckling, she turned around and began to walk away.

Shiena wasn't going to take that.

Within five seconds, Shiena shoved herself off the ground and took advantage of the girl's surprise to pin her against the wall. She snarled. "What did you do to me?"

The girl's eyes were wide with shock, but her speech flowed like it would've in any conversation. "Apparently not enough."

Shiena pressed harder into the girl's arms. "You tried to turn me into a vampire, didn't you?"

"Not really." She shrugged despite Shiena's grip. "I just wanted some food. Turning people into vampires is an inescapable side-effect of feeding."

Beside herself with anger fueled by physical pain, Shiena let go of one of the girls's arms to punch her in the face before taking deep, calming breaths. "Excuse me," she said, holding a hand to her face. "The past few… minutes… or whatever… have been exhausting for me. I just needed to let it out."

Chuckling lightly, the girl waved a hand. "No problem, I get it. You practically died there, so I can understand how tired you must be."

"But you have to answer me," Shiena said. "Vampires nowadays aren't usually allowed to feed on other human beings, are they?"

"Nope," the girl answered as she rubbed the side of her face.

"Then why did you drink from me?" Shiena asked.

The girl hummed in thought. "I'm not sure if I should just give such sensitive information so freely," she said. "What about you, though? I doubt a regular werewolf could naturally resist vampirism. So what are you? Some kind of new youkai?"

Shiena looked to the side. "…Half werewolf," she shrugged.

"That doesn't explain much at all," the vampire said. "In fact, it even makes things a bit more confusing. What's the other half?"

"I wish I knew," Shiena answered. "Human, probably, but either way, being a mutt is a bit of a problem back at home, especially if no one knows what _else _you are."

Shaking her head, the vampire clicked her tongue. "You poor thing," she said.

Shiena tightened her grip on the vampire's arm. "I don't need any pity from you," she said. "Now answer my question. Why did you drink from me?"

The vampire laughed. "Sometimes an outcast gets a little strapped for food, you know? When rare steaks and raw meats just won't cut it anymore?"

"Outcast," Shiena said. "I knew it. If that's the case, then I want your help."

"Oho, aren't you a rebellious little puppy, getting help from a vampire." She effortlessly yanked her arm out of Shiena's grasp, ignoring the shocked expression on her face. "'Scuse me, it was starting to get uncomfortable. Anyway, about your negotiation. I don't think I'd be quite alright with working for someone whose name I don't know. Who are you, mutt?"

"Kenmochi Shiena," Shiena answered. "Do _not _call me 'mutt.'"

The vampire's grin widened, fully displaying her pronounced fangs. "I don't think I will. 'Shiena' is a beautiful name, so I think I'll use that instead. My name is Takechi Otoya." She bowed, and Shiena was half-sure it was meant to mock her. "So, what do you want me to do, and what's in it for me?"

* * *

Two crescent moons had come and gone before Otoya had received her first payment for her agreement with Shiena—a long, satisfying drink of her blood in exchange for refuge away from the rest of the werewolves.

In comparison to when they met, Shiena's reaction to the pain was noticeably more restrained, as if it hurt less than before. The clawing on Otoya's back and the biting on her neck were reduced to just painfully forceful grips on her shoulders and screams muffled into the shoulder of her shirt. It made enjoying her meal a bit more troublesome than Otoya liked, but at least now she didn't have to spend nights upon nights of fruitlessly searching for people to drink from.

Her appetite sated, Otoya released Shiena's neck, lapping up the last few stray drops of blood while rubbing Shiena's back in soothing circular motions.

Though her voice shook with her strained, trembling breaths, Shiena was able to force a few words out. "Does… it ever… stop hurting?"

"I wouldn't know," she said, finishing up with a few short licks. "Like I said before, you're the first person I've met that's been able to resist turning."

"I'm not sure if I should be—" Shiena shuddered as she exhaled. "—should b-be thankful for that or not."

"I think you should!" Otoya whisper-shouted. "Most people only get to experience death once in their life. You experience it multiple times every time I bite you! I'm no masochist, but that sounds like a privilege to me!"

Shiena groaned. "_That's _what this is? Some… kind of cycle of death and resurrection?"

"That's what logic tells me it is," Otoya said. "Think about it. Vampires are technically dead, and when they bite people, those people die so they can turn into vampires, too. And since the bites I give you pack a bit more punch than what I give to regular people, you die more than them without dying at all! Neat, isn't it?"

A breeze rushed through the leaves of the tree they sat under while Otoya waited for a response. When it settled down and she received none, she continued. "Did it hurt as much as last time, though?"

"S-Surprisingly, no." Her heartbeat began to return to normal—Otoya had an ear for it as a vampire. "Either that, or I can just take it better now."

As she nodded silently, Otoya pulled one of Shiena's braids back over her neck to better hide the bite mark. "Mm-hm."

The next few moments were filled only with sounds of Shiena's breathing and Otoya's hand running over the cloth of her shirt. Around the time Shiena settled enough to breathe through her nose, Otoya slowed her rubbing to a stop.

"You okay now?" she asked.

Shiena grumbled. "You're strangely concerned about my well-being."

"Well the way this deal goes," Otoya said, "we'll be stuck with each other for a while. Might as well try to get along, right?" A mischievous grin appeared on her face before she moved to rub her face in Shiena's hair. "Besides, you're pretty cute. As in, puppy cute, not little girl cute. Isn't it natural to want to take care of cute things?"

The only reply she received was a tired groan. More or less satisfied, Otoya gently propped Shiena up on the tree trunk behind her before wrapping a thin blanket around her. Shiena shuffled under it for a while, getting into a comfortable position, before she spoke again.

"So, no fires?" she said.

"If you want one, you're going to have to start it yourself." Otoya took a seat next to Shiena, resting her head on the other's scruffy brown hair. "Fires make me physically ill if they're too close."

"And speaking of too close…"

With a small chuckle, Otoya smiled into Shiena's hair. "If I'm bothering you so much, you're not doing anything about it."

Shiena nudged Otoya's head with her own. "It's hilarious how you assume that I can move when all my limbs are aching."

Almost immediately, Otoya sat up. "I thought you said you were okay."

"I never really answered that question," Shiena said. "Pay more attention next time."

For the next few moments after that, the forest around them seemed to be unmoving and frozen, with the only signs of time passing being the ambient buzzing of cicadas and the occasional screech of a bat. In her idleness, Otoya noticed the half-moon visible through a gap in a cloud, its shape vaguely reminiscent of a wide smile. She found it a little pathetic how much it amused her.

"And what are you smiling about?"

Otoya glanced to the side for a second to find Shiena trying to follow her gaze. Looking at the arrangement of branches and Shiena's particular placement on the ground, Otoya knew that she wouldn't be able to see the moon. A drifting cloud had already hidden it by then, anyway.

"Just a funny thought," Otoya answered after a pause.

"Well if you're done grinning to yourself," Shiena said, "then I think we should get going before the sun comes back up."

"Eh?" Otoya leaned forward to look at Shiena. "But didn't you just say you were hurting just a few minutes ago?"

Wordlessly, Shiena pulled the blanket off and stood up with a bit of a struggle. "See? I can move now," she said, despite the slight pained twist in her countenance. "I recovered from this one a little faster than before. If this keeps up, then I'll be good as new in just a few minutes."

Otoya stood up next to Shiena, hands hanging at her sides in case she stumbled. "Then why not wait a few minutes? No need to push yourself too hard, you know."

"We're pressed for time as it is," Shiena said. "And I've got a hunch that you're feeling pretty weak, too. Why else would you have begged for my blood in the middle of escaping to another city?"

The air was silent for a moment as Otoya searched her mind for a good answer. She found none, and from the way Shiena turned around and began to walk away, Otoya figured it must have been plainly apparent on her expression.

"That's what I thought," Shiena said as she took slow, heavy steps toward the thick backpack that lied on the ground nearby. "The more time we spend sitting around here, the less energy you'll have left for actual travel once we get around to it. So, the sooner the better."

"Okay, okay," Otoya said, defeated, as she caught up to Shiena. She helped her slide the backpack onto her shoulders. "So, how do you plan on staying away from the other werewolves, huh? They'd probably try to kill you or something once they find out you've been actively avoiding them. Maybe they'll do even worse, since you're working with a criminal vampire."

"Takechi," Shiena said, "the moment I start thinking this deal is a bad idea is the moment I'm taking it back."

Otoya clasped her hands behind her, smiling coyly as she advanced a few short strides ahead of Shiena. "Don't worry, I have to lie low in the first place, and I don't think we've been…" She made a series of unintelligible noises. "…enough to share scents or something."

Shiena picked her pace up. "What was that gibberish just now?"

"That was me, not coming up with a word for an idea in time," Otoya said. "I could've said 'intimate', but that implied affection. Whether we start hugging or shoving each other around every five minutes, it'd end the same way—two scents on one monster."

"What about earlier, then, when you were rubbing my back?" Shiena asked. "You think my back might smell like you now?"

"Psh, I don't think it's that simple," Otoya answered. "Even if you did somehow end up smelling like me because of that, it's windy tonight, and even if we get attacked by your pack of werewolf stalkers—"

"I don't have a pack of werewolf stalkers."

"—I'm sure it'd be fairly easy for me to beat them. I think. I might've gotten rusty after a few years."

A glow became visible in the distance, bearing a distinct dullness that set it apart from the natural sunlight that Otoya made a point to avoid. 58 years of wandering made her quite familiar with that sight. She looked meaningfully at Shiena, wordlessly telling her that they were nearing their destination, and upon seeing it, Shiena seemed to liven up and walk faster toward the city ahead.

As she cracked a joke about Shiena's unexpected energy, Otoya pondered to herself. Maybe the wandering would stop soon.

* * *

**So this chapter sucks as a standalone story, but I'm not really sure I can pull off a full multi-chapter fic, so depending on what happens with this, I may or may not continue it. If you're interested, you could leave a review, or if you're not but still have something to say, then you could also leave a review. Either way, feedback would be appreciated. :3**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Heeey, I decided to continue it. Important things first, though. I'm estimating that the shortest this can be while still wrapping everything up would be about 6 chapters, and the longest it could be would be around 15 or so. Not sure how quickly I'll update, but I'll do what I can.**

* * *

They knew it was past midnight, but within the first fifteen minutes of their arrival at this new city, they'd already passed by a dozen or so graveyard-shift workers and a few groups of carefree teens, who sometimes glanced curiously at them while mumbling a few poorly-hidden comments. Sometimes, when they happened to be walking ahead of them, Otoya was able to pick up a few phrases, mostly whispers about her deathly pallor or how odd her hair was—as if _she _had anything to do with how it flared out at the ends—but she overheard at least one instance about someone mentioning how strange it was to see only one out of a pair of girls holding a travel-sized backpack.

It didn't quite matter to her what they said, thought or done as much as that they were awake to do so. The hours after midnight were supposed to be reserved for the freedom of creatures like her, who didn't belong in a world filled with daylight and life. This city didn't seem to be aware of that silent arrangement of nature. With a frown she kept to herself, Otoya looked to the ground and tried to think of the simplest way to get around this new inconvenience.

First things first, though. She had to stop Shiena from looking so tense all the time.

"What up with you?" she said. "Half-werewolf senses tingling or something?"

"Nothing." Shiena's nail lightly scuffed over the strap of her backpack while her eyes flitted across the street. "It's just hard to relax when you're not sure where you're going."

Feigning disappointment, Otoya clicked her tongue thrice. "After all these weeks, Shiena-chan still doesn't trust me?"

"Let's not forget that you're a runaway criminal," Shiena said. "I'm taking risks just by standing next to you, really."

"Aw, come on, Shiena-chan, be more sensible than that!" Otoya said. "Do you really think it would be safe for me to try something in a place like this, where some poor soul might walk in on us an expose our species to the world?"

"It wouldn't be, but that doesn't mean you're quite sane enough not to try it."

Otoya laughed heartily, careful to cover her mouth with her hand to hide her fangs. "Oh, Shiena-chan, remind me to explain a few things to you once we find some privacy."

Shiena sighed. "When's that going to be? When we find an alley reliably deep and dank enough to hide in?"

"Ick, no way," Otoya said. "I only go to alleys when I need to lure in innocent little girls like you." She spared a moment to savor Shiena indignantly blowing a lock of her hair off her face. "Since you're new to this whole thing, I might have to tell you a bit about how our world works."

"Explain away," Shiena said.

After a short chuckle, Otoya cleared her throat and stuck her finger in the air for a fake bookish effect. "Lesson one. We creatures of the night actually get some assistance when it comes to masquerading as humans. Some places in cities or towns and stuff are equipped with these things—I guess you could call it magic—that hide our weirder traits from the regular people. The tricky part is finding them."

Shiena watched Otoya's eyes dart across different structures on the street. "So, how exactly do you find these places?"

"Personally, I use glass," Otoya answered. "You know how vampires don't have reflections?"

Shiena nodded. "Yeah. And I'm guessing you try to find pieces of glass that reflect you?"

Otoya snapped her fingers. "Bingo! That's how a vampire like me goes around finding the best places to hide, but as for you werewolves…" She shook her head and shrugged. "You already have reliable human forms. No need to find a place to hide, 'cause there's nothing to hide in the first place."

"That sounds like it might become a problem later on," Shiena said. "I mean, if I ever end up in a situation where I need to find one after we split up, how am I supposed to do that?"

"I dunno," Otoya said as they rounded a corner. "Like I said, I'm no werewolf. The most contact I've ever had with your kind was probably that time I drank from a werewolf girl by accident. Heh, she's probably still alive and really angry at me for turning her into a vampire." A hint of moonlight glinted off a button on her cloak as she sniggered at the thought.

The little bubbles of amusement were still floating around in Otoya's chest when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked at Shiena. "What's up?"

Shiena pointed at something behind her. "Look at that," she said. "Is that enough of a reflection for you?"

"Eh?" Otoya's eyebrows rose in a mix of curiosity and mild surprise as she turned around to see what Shiena was referring to.

It was a rectangular window on a wide redwood door. The other side of it was dim, only illuminated by a pair of fluorescent light bulbs in the center of the ceiling. Otoya had to focus on the glass to make out her own silhouette, but for one reason or another, it was easier for her to catch the reflection of Shiena, who moved around trying to peer into the room inside. She attributed it to the placement of the lamppost behind them.

"What are you looking for?" Otoya asked Shiena's reflection.

"Trying to see if there's anyone in there we can talk to," Shiena said. "Vampires can't enter places they weren't given permission to enter, right?"

Otoya laughed and reached back to ruffle Shiena's hair. "Yeah but we don't need to ask someone when we've got something like this hanging around the door." She tapped on the glass with her fingernail, referring to an 'OPEN' sign hanging from a small plastic suction cup. "'Open' signs are basically invitations to everyone, so stores like these are easy walk-ins!"

"'Easy walk-ins?'"

Before Shiena could question the wording even further, Otoya strode into the small store with the subtlety of a stone through a window. The door chime nearly fell off its hook.

"H-Hey, Takechi!" Shiena slipped through the door just before it closed. "What's the matter with you? You can't just barge in here like that, especially at—" Her eyes strayed to a wall clock for a moment. "—Two in the morning!"

"Ssh." Otoya held a finger to her lips, giving Shiena a halfhearted stern look. "Shiena-chan, don't talk so loud. Don't you know what time it is?"

Shiena said nothing, opting only to glare at Otoya for a few seconds before flicking her in the forehead.

"Stay here, then," she said while Otoya grinned to herself. "I'm going to go look for the store owner or something."

Without another word, Shiena set her backpack down by the door and walked off toward the corner, pausing to stare at the spotted cat sitting quietly by the wall before disappearing behind a bookshelf.

In Otoya's 58 years of wandering in the strangest places in Japan, she'd never before seen a cat in a book shop before, especially not one so small and—if she were to judge based on the browning on some of the shelved books' pages—timeworn. Head tilted in interest, she idly stared at its slumbering feline form until it yawned awake and began approaching her with slow, drowsy cat steps.

"Aww…" Otoya crouched to stroke the cat's back. "What's a little kitty like you doing in a place like this?"

As if to reply, the cat meowed and rubbed its head over Otoya's knees.

Delighted, Otoya sat down on the floor to allow the cat to step on her legs a little, possibly as a request for more petting. She scratched lightly behind its ear. "Hehe, aren't you a friendly one?"

"Beppumaru is only this friendly towards a few very special people."

The voice came from behind Otoya, who nearly jumped to see whose it was—a girl of short, evenly cut silver hair and gold eyes that seemed to have a cold sharpness under a warm, mellow exterior. Her height was somewhat underwhelming to Otoya, who was about a full head taller, but somehow it didn't detract from the chilly atmosphere that she seemed to have brought with her. Looking at her was like trying to stare down a dragon underneath a lake, even accounting for the struggle to see through the mist surrounding it and the darkness in the waters themselves.

It took a thick swallow for Otoya to get her voice back. "Uh, hey, I didn't see you there. So, is this cat yours?"

She nodded. "Yes, Beppumaru is one of my assistants. He has a talent for finding the best customers." Crouching, the silver-haired girl allowed Beppumaru to crawl into her arms, where he purred contently. "That being said, I'm very pleased to know that he was able to find a new friend. My name is Shutou Suzu. It's an honor to finally make your acquaintance, Takechi Otoya-san."

Alarm shot up Otoya's spine like lightning, but she didn't move, only stood there, firm with tension. "So you're heard of me."

Suzu smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "It shouldn't come as a surprise, considering your 37 years of infamy," she said. The tranquility in her voice was almost uncanny. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you've been exiled from the entire society of vampires for 26 cases of blood slavery, right?"

"Actually they were 29 cases, but yeah, that's what I'm exiled for," Otoya replied, keeping her voice even. "They _could've _saved everyone the trouble and executed me on the spot, but here I am after shaking off bounty hunters and seekers of vengeance alike over 37 years."

"And I applaud you for that," Suzu said, putting Beppumaru down. After a parting rub on Suzu's leg, Beppumaru walked behind another bookshelf. Otoya wondered if he was going in the same direction as Shiena, while Suzu looked fondly at Beppumaru before continuing. "But as much skill as you might have at fighting your enemies off, I can't simply submit to that and allow you to traipse into my home and bring your trouble with you."

"'Trouble?'" Despite herself, a mischievous grin alighted on Otoya's features. "Do you mean Shiena-chan? Wow, has she done something to offend you _already_?"

Suzu's foot twitched backward at Otoya's words, and she thought she saw a hint of surprise in her eyes for a fleeting instant. "'Shiena?' Who is…?"

"Hey, Takechi."

With amazingly convenient timing, Shiena appeared behind Suzu, scratching the back of her head while her eyebrows were furrowed in disappointment. "Sorry, I couldn't find anyone past the door in the back. This place might be—" She saw Suzu. "Oh. There she is. Figures."

"Shiena-chan!" Like a rush of wind, Otoya flew past Suzu and strategically placed herself behind Shiena, gripping her shoulders and pointing like a scared child. "She's being scary! Go talk to her for me!" She nudged Shiena towards Suzu.

"What?" Shiena's glances awkwardly fluctuated between Otoya and Suzu as she tried to gain even a semblance of a hint on what to do. "How do you expect _me_ to clean up _your_ messes? Aren't you supposed to be the stone-cold outlaw?"

Otoya put on her best pout. "That doesn't make me immune to scary people like that!"

Shiena's hand went to her hip as she sighed. Mentally shoving Otoya's statement away, she looked at Suzu. "What's going on here?"

"Are you a friend of Takechi-san's?" Suzu asked. "Or her accomplice, perhaps?"

"Ugh. No. Neither." Shiena pinched the bridge of her nose. "Firstly, I don't consider her anything remotely close to a 'friend' with how much of a pain she is to be around. Second, I'm not involved in any schemes she might be cooking up."

"So what _are _you, then?" Suzu asked.

"I don't know, her travel companion? Client? Living food supply?" Shiena shrugged. "Whatever I am, you still haven't answered my question. What did you do to," she air quoted the next word, "'scare' her?"

There was a silent pause as Suzu spared a moment to stare confoundedly at the odd duo that Otoya and Shiena formed. From behind Shiena, Otoya waved, and Suzu sent her an odd look before returning to Shiena's question. "I simply brought up her notoriety. Nothing else."

"That's not true!" Otoya exclaimed. "I mean, well, yeah you brought my bad rep up, but you also started going on about how I couldn't just come in here!"

"Uh, no kidding," Shiena said, to Otoya's surprise. "I don't think a lot of people would be completely fine with letting a criminal into their home like nobody's business. That being said, though…" She looked at Suzu. "What exactly about Takechi is stopping you from letting her in?"

Suzu's expression turned pensive. "Well, you said it yourself. Allowing someone like Takechi Otoya into my home puts me at risk of being investigated and attacked by bounty hunters and vampire slayers. Not only that, but I have no reason to believe that she won't try to drink from me."

"I see," Shiena said, nodding. "Well, to begin with, Takechi doesn't have any reason to drink from you." She moved her left braid from her neck, displaying to Suzu the pair of bite marks that Otoya had left. "Remember what I said earlier about being her living food supply? I, uh, kinda meant it. As long as I'm around, all she has to do to get a snack is ask." The braid fell back onto her shoulder.

Simultaneously, both Suzu's eyes and Otoya's grin began to widen. In a haste fueled by apprehension, Suzu's hand went up to clutch at the sides of a disk-like vial that hung around her neck, and she brought it to her eyes like a monocle to look through it, at Shiena. "You… you're not a vampire. Even after getting bitten by one, you didn't…"

Through the vial, Otoya watched Suzu's eye narrow, and noticed how the water—or whatever liquid was in there—almost seemed to have caught some of the gold somehow, for just a heartbeat, before it turned completely transparent again as it was put down. Suzu seemed to have been satisfied by whatever it was she saw through it.

Shiena was the one who decided to break the silence of next few moments, simply by moving to lightly scratch at her head with a finger. "So… Yes, I'm not a vampire—"

"A werewolf," Suzu said. "You're a werewolf, as far as I was able to see. But also… something else. It was too weak for me to identify, but I know it wasn't human."

"And that's right, too. I'm not a vampire after being bitten by one, and I'm not entirely a werewolf, but whatever I am, it lets Takechi drink from me whenever she wants as long as she's helping me." She paused, then shrugged. "So if she still tries to bite you, then you have my express permission to punch her in the face or something."

With a discerning eye, Suzu alternated glances between Otoya and Shiena, before giving a slow nod. "You make a convincing argument."

Otoya took that moment to hop back into the conversation, dashing to Shiena's side in a blur of movement. "So you think you can take down someone like me?" she said, more playful than arrogant.

A smirk appeared on Suzu's face when she nodded. "Vampires are powerful creatures, blessed with a form of immortality, superhuman strength, physical transformation and sometimes even flight," she said, "but in return, they are also cursed with many weaknesses. Large natural bodies of water, fire, sacred objects, light, stakes out of specific kinds of wood, and even something as simple as garlic. It shouldn't be very difficult to kill you, given that I can find many of those things in my own home."

"If it were _that_ simple, then I wouldn't be a 58 year-old vampire in a 17 year-old body," Otoya said. "But… yeah, you could probably knock me out easily enough. Okay."

"_Anyway…" _Shiena shot Otoya a quick glare, to which Otoya responded with a smile. "…Ahem, Takechi and I noticed that this place hides our, um, more unusual traits well enough. I don't know much about bounty hunter tendencies, but I doubt anyone would accuse a healthy-looking teenage girl of being an infamous vampire. Not like that thing around your neck can be found at every other antique shop, right?"

Thorough consideration was clear on Suzu's face as she looked down to the ground. "Yes… And this means that it would be very unlikely for anyone to try to attack her while she hid here."

"Like I said, nothing absolute, but yes." Shiena was quiet for a beat. "So will you let her in?"

Suzu chuckled dryly. "You just assume that I have space here for two people like you?"

"At least a closet's worth of space!" Otoya said, finger outstretched upward. "Shiena-chan and I always sleep huddled up anyway!"

As she roughly jabbed Otoya's side with an elbow, Shiena shook her head at the statement. "False. She does this all the time."

Suzu chuckled again. "Well, you two seem fine. I can at least trust, um, Shiena-san, to be the voice of reason if ever Takechi-san acts out of line." She looked at Shiena. "Your full name is?"

"Kenmochi Shiena," she said.

"Thank you." Suzu cleared her throat. "Takechi-san, Kenmochi-san, please follow me."

* * *

The wooden floor of the hallway behind the back door was so-well polished that Shiena had become engrossed in watching the moving reflections more than seeing where Suzu was leading her. In particular, she found most interesting the trotting reflection of Beppumaru, who they found waiting on one of the bookshelves for the chance to tail them as they walked, and Beppumaru seemed to have shared the sentiments. It seemed to Shiena that the peculiar feline made it his duty to meow loudly at Shiena every few steps between the occasional headbutt.

Shiena found the arrangement understandable. She, herself, wasn't quite sure if the urge she had to chase the cat away was from playfulness or loathing. Likewise, she couldn't discern from any of Beppumaru's tones of meowing or the strength of his headbutts was intended to repel Shiena or show her affection.

"Rawr," Shiena said, her voice flat and dull. A second later, Beppumaru meowed back at her.

Suzu slowed her pace to look back at them. "Looks like Beppumaru's grown to like you, too, Kenmochi-san."

"Is that why he won't leave me alone?" Shiena said. She lifted her leg to dodge another headbutt. "Aren't cats supposed to be more, I don't know, peaceful, then this?"

"Not him," Suzu answered. "He's not a regular cat. He's a 73 year-old Bakeneko, and he's been living with me for about a decade. Since he's a youkai, he tends to like other creatures like him."

Otoya snapped her fingers. "I had a feeling he was special! So he's been with you since you were young, Shutou-san?"

"Younger, yes," Suzu answered. "I'm not any more normal than he is. In fact, as a Highlander, I'm actually several years older than him."

"A 'Highlander?'" Otoya said. "I've never heard of one of those before. What are they?"

They reached the end of the hallway, where a staircase stood before them, and a door to their right. As she turned to face the door, Suzu swept a hand across her face to push away some stray strands of hair. "That's not very important right now," she said. "You two are okay with sharing a room, right?"

Shiena made a grumbling noise. "I was hoping that wouldn't be the case, but I guess I can deal with it."

"Sorry," Suzu said, pushing the door open. "There weren't a lot of rooms left over since after this place was turned into a book shop. You can look inside."

"Dibs!"

Just as Shiena was about to get a first glimpse through the door, Otoya slid inside and made a beeline for the bed on the right side of the room. Excited as a child on their birthday, she rolled around on the covers before sitting back up. "Oh, sorry, Shiena-chan, I hope you don't mind if I made the decisions for you."

"That's okay," Shiena said through a light sigh. "It doesn't really matter much to me which bed I get."

"Yay!" The bed springs creaked as Otoya hopped up and ran back to wrap Shiena in a hug. "Thanks, Shiena-chan! There's no way I'd have been comfortable staying so close to a window."

Shiena weakly tried to wiggle free. "So you had an ulterior motive."

"Don't get upset," Otoya said, letting Shiena go. "I _am _a vampire, after all."

Taking a small step away from Otoya, Shiena smoothed down the shoulders of her hoodie. "I never said it was a problem."

Apparently satisfied with that resolution, Otoya turned to go back to the bed, only for to Suzu deftly slide ahead of her and shut the door before her foot went through the boundaries of the doorframe. It forced her to stumble backwards and bump into Shiena, who swiftly pushed her back upright with little more than a shove of her palm.

"Hey, what gives?" Otoya asked, after a short wobble on her heels.

Suzu reached into her pocket and pulled out a twice-folded slip of paper that had been torn from the spine of a spiral pocket notebook, holding it in the air between two fingers. "There's still one thing for you two to prove before I can actually let you stay here any longer than a month," she said. "Kenmochi-san, please take this. Excuse the ink—I wanted to see if one of my old brush pens still worked."

With a suspicious squint in her countenance, Shiena plucked the paper from Suzu's hand and quickly opened it, scanning the over the words penned in slightly blotted ink. Her brow crinkled with every dart of her eye. "Is this… a shopping list?"

"Lemme see!" Otoya hopped to read over Shiena's shoulder.

Each written line on the torn notebook page read a different object, most of which seemed almost completely unrelated to the others, as if carefully chosen for as much variety as possible. Otoya graciously read through it aloud.

"'Banana essence, 10 sheets of manila paper, 5 grams of 24-karat gold, a deck of playing cards, Kinosaki and Dogo bath salts, aloe leaves,' and…" she decided to leave out the '8 grams of sylvanite' crossed out at the bottom. "…Well, I guess that's it."

"What are we supposed to convince you of with this?" Shiena said.

Suzu placed her hands on her hips and smiled. "Think of this as a little test, or a game," she said. "I need to know how much you want to stay here."

"Not enough to go out looking for a piece of 24-karat gold," Shiena said.

"Let me finish," Suzu continued. "I know what I said earlier about how dangerous it was to simply keep someone with Takechi Otoya's notoriety in my own home. I meant every word of it, and it is precisely why I need to conduct this test." Shifting lazily shifting her weight to one foot, she pointed at the paper Shiena still had in her hand. "If you succeed in getting every item in that list, I will allow you to stay here for as long as you please."

An amazed half-gasp climbed through Otoya's throat. "As long as we want?"

Suzu nodded. "As long as you want. By having the two of you fetch the items on that list, I'll have an estimate on how far you're willing to go to keep living here. So say, for instance, a mob of vampire hunters attack this house in search of you. The amount of effort you'd have put into finding all the items on that list should be roughly the amount of effort you'd put into protecting this place."

"Isn't that logic a little flawed?" Shiena asked, her head tilted in question. "Fighting and, um, scavenger hunting hardly ask for the same skill sets. A fisher might be willing to spend hours waiting for a bite and just as willing to slay a bear, but he may only be capable of succeeding in one of those options."

"I'm well aware of that," Suzu answered. "But considering what you are—a vampire and a werewolf hybrid, that is—and how difficult it would be to hide your non-human traits, I imagine that fighting might be easier for you than asking regular people if they know a nice place to find aloe leaves."

After a silent few seconds, Shiena shrugged. "Point."

"But wait," Otoya said, "are we going to go out for this right now?"

"No, no, of course not," Suzu said. "That would be unnecessarily cruel. I'll give you…" She tapped her chin and looked to the ceiling in thought. "…Two days? To rest up and plan your little search?"

Otoya stepped forward, putting her hands together in a pleading gesture that, on her, was difficult to take seriously. "Bargain for three?"

Though her eyebrow was raised and her head tilted, Suzu shrugged her shoulders. "All right. No skin off my back, I suppose."

"Yay!" Arms outstretched, Otoya pounced at the small Highlander, who nimbly sidestepped it.

"Sorry," she said. "I can't accept hugs from a vampire I trust so little." As the last word passed through her lips, she opened the door to their room. "If you'd like, you could leave some of your belongings here during your search. I promise not to take any of them while you're away."

"Thanks again, Shutou-san!" Otoya chirped. Before heading into her room, she stepped around to whisper something in Shiena's ear, cupping a hand near her mouth. "Why does she have to be so suspicious of me?"

Shiena had a plethora of sarcastic or otherwise biting answers to that question, but settled on the only one she could've whispered. "Because she knows you're a monster who takes advantage of sympathy to get what you want, probably." She punctuated it with a light elbow to Otoya's gut. "Get going before she gets any _more _suspicious."

As Otoya promptly hopped into the room buried her face in a pillow, Shiena pulled her backpack off and set it on the wall next to the door. "I know Takechi is the main problem here and I can see how concerned you are with her," she told Suzu, "but I want to know where I stand in all this."

At that, Suzu's expression only seemed to show a nearly imperceptible fraction of surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I thought you should know, but I never intended to stay with Takechi any longer than I needed to," Shiena said, keeping her voice low. "The plan was to split up completely once I found a good way to avoid the other werewolves. Not to mention, it's much easier for me to pose as a person than it is for her. This place won't mean as much for me as it might for her."

"Oh, interesting," Suzu said, her smile widening a tooth. "So you and Takechi-san aren't quite as firmly bound together as I thought. But does this mean that you won't be accepting my challenge?"

Shiena sighed through her nose. "Knowing how Takechi is, she'll just drag me into helping her like she always has. I doubt I'll have much of a choice in the matter."

"Then what is it?" Suzu asked.

"I'll get to the point." Though Shiena looked elsewhere, she could still feel Suzu's gaze boring holes into her, like she was looking for hints to solve some bizarre puzzle. "Is there any reason you'd want _me_ to stay? I still don't know much about the world outside my old home, and I'm not even as strong as a regular werewolf. As some kind of protector, I doubt I'd be very useful."

The room was silent a few moments after Shiena finished her explanation, but when she finally mustered up the willpower to look back at Suzu, she found her golden eyes out of focus, as if searching for something hidden in the air.

She was about to call out to her when Suzu spoke again, seemingly sprung out of her trance in an instant. "It's actually quite simple."

"Huh?"

"You're immune to the death of a vampire bite, Kenmochi-san," Suzu said. "Not to mention, you are a hybrid of two creatures. It's very likely that you have a greater number of undiscovered abilities. But that's all conjecture. It's just as likely that being a hybrid really has made you weaker than either of your parent species."

Shiena grimaced. "So what, then? Am I an asset or an accessory?"

Suzu chuckled. "An asset," she said with surprising firmness. "I think that being around you might help me learn a few things. Exactly what, I don't know for sure, but it's very likely that you're something...special. I may never get a chance like this in another century. "

"Basically," Shiena said, "you just want to observe me?"

"I suppose," Suzu said. "I also happen to be somewhat interested in the nature of your relationship with Takechi-san, and if you both stay together in the end, then I'd like to see what kind of long-term effects this might have on her." She closed her eyes and waved her hand in the air. "All in all, several small reasons, mostly observation. Maybe I'll grow to enjoy your company, assuming you succeed and stay here long enough."

A long pause passed before Shiena responded. "…Okay. Thanks."

"Have my answers satisfied you?" Suzu asked.

"They have," Shiena said. "For now, anyway. Things might change in the future."

"All right then. Good night, Kenmochi-san."

Without another word, Suzu slipped out the door and closed it behind her.

For several long, silent seconds, Shiena stood in front of the door, staring absently at the smooth brown wood while her mind toiled away, trying to sort out her thoughts about her current situation.

Thanks to a deal she thought of herself, she was sharing her blood with one of the most notorious vampires in Japan.

Their current place of residence was a room behind a bookstore.

The owner of that bookstore was a Highlander with the appearance of a teenage girl.

That Highlander was the first person who'd ever seen Shiena's hybridity as anything other than something to be ashamed of.

Shiena slipped her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and took a deep breath. Her voice was weak with uncertainty when she spoke, but she found it had a tinge of satisfaction.

"I… guess this is a step in the right direction."

* * *

**So nothing much happens in this chapter except for some setting up for later events and the introduction of this AU's Suzu. As always, all kinds of feedback, including any guesses on future events or characters (_especially _guesses, actually, I like guesses) or suggestions, etc. are appreciated and sprinkled with love, thank you.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Kind of a late update for a chapter that turned out longer than I expected, buuut I think it went pretty well overall, especially the last part. I think this is where things pick up, and also, someone else is introduced.**

**By the way, in case you find any errors, please PM me or mention it in a review. I might have missed something. Anyway, enjoy~**

* * *

If it weren't for the urban chatter from outside the window, Shiena would've woken up to absolute silence instead of the sudden honk of an angry driver's car.

One of her eyes cracked open, only to be strained by the bright light of… what time was it?

Though her thoughts were still hazy and her first instincts nagged at her to just bury herself in the blankets and go back to sleep, she was able to vaguely recall what the hexagonal wall clock had read just before she fell asleep—3:34 AM. Hardly anything new for her, but the weeks she'd spent with Otoya had slowly been changing her into a night owl, and she was especially exhausted from last night's events. It wouldn't have surprised her if it turned out to be sometime late in the afternoon.

The image of that list that Suzu had given them flashed in her head for a split-second, and she groaned. Most of the items seemed simple enough to find in a few stores scattered around town, and maybe 58 year-old Otoya would know something about the others, but the gold was certainly discouraging. Maybe she could find a way to leave Otoya with the bulk of the searching work.

Two people from outside had begun to argue over something Shiena wasn't lucid enough to piece together. With a sigh, she reluctantly pushed herself up and blinked the last traces of sleep from her eyes. Getting back to bed was about impossible for her now.

Shiena didn't mind the time, but she estimated she spent around five minutes absently sitting on the bed and staring into space. For one reason or another, the air in the room was pleasantly cool, almost like nighttime.

"Hey, Takechi…" she mumbled, though doubtful she could be heard. The partition between their beds was an old, thin folding screen that hadn't likely blocked much sound between them, but Shiena had barely heard even herself.

"Takechi," she said, a notch louder than before, and waited a few seconds for a response. Nothing. Maybe Otoya had already gotten up.

Without even trying a third time, Shiena swung her legs of the edge of the bed and walked to the other side of the folding divider. Unsurprisingly, Otoya still laid there, her limbs tossed about in every direction and the blankets thrown halfway off her body in her stirring. Her fangs were carelessly on display with how her mouth was just slightly ajar.

Shiena contemplated waking her up for a few seconds before deciding against it and instead choosing to spend the next several minutes preparing for the rest of the day. Showering and changing into a new set of clothes took her ten minutes, and once she'd finished retying her braids and shrugging over the strands of hair that stubbornly remained upright, she made her way to the doors leading to the book shop.

Hearing voices in conversation just past the door made her slow her pace to a stop. A grumbling sound rose up her throat.

Was her hair okay? Did she look like she'd been trekking across cities while following an eccentric vampire? What would she say if they asked for an introduction? 'Hi there, I'm Kenmochi Shiena. Sorry if I seem a little fidgety—I'm really not used to talking with people of any sort. Most of the actual conversations I've had over my life were with a crazy criminal. Maybe you knew one of her victims?'

"Ugh." Palm on her forehead, Shiena sighed and moved her foot to turn and go back to her room, when the door clicked open.

Suzu spoke to a customer from past the counter as she stepped in. "I think we might have an extra copy left over. I'll be right back." The door closed behind her, and a smile appeared on her face upon seeing Shiena. "Oh, good morning, Kenmochi-san. Is Takechi-san awake, too?"

"No," Shiena answered, hand falling back to her side. "She's probably planning on sleeping in until late afternoon. By the way, what time is it? I forgot to check earlier."

"Around one in the afternoon," Suzu said, taking steps toward something apparently past Shiena. "By the way, I don't want to be overbearing or anything, but could you help me with something? A customer of mine is asking for a book that might be a little deep in storage."

"Sure," Shiena answered. Wordlessly, she followed Suzu into another room in the same hallway.

In contrast to the polished, well-kept appearance of the hallways and the store area outside, the storage room was covered in dust and filled with boxes and books in nearly every square foot of space. Some were in wide shelves along the right and back walls, and others were placed haphazardly around the floor and atop each other. The smells of aging paper and worn cardboard mingled to form a scent that Shiena found strangely pleasant, despite the dust and thinness of the air. On the left side of the room were shelves packed with books of all sizes, resting vertically, horizontally, on top of and under each other as if desperate to find space for themselves.

Before Shiena could puzzle out any order the shelved books could've been in, Suzu had already pulled aside one of the boxes and begun to search through it, eyeing covers and spines with a keen, quick eye.

"Could you check over there, in the box labeled…" She craned her neck to look elsewhere in the room. "…A1-F? The other book he's looking for might be there."

Shiena took a moment to look for the box Suzu referred to, finding it in the corner, wedged under a stack of two others like it. "You mean the one over there, stuck under the other boxes?"

"Yep. I figured, since you were a werewolf, you'd be better off lifting the boxes than me. Oh, but be really gentle about it, and don't open either of them. I'll turn you into a shrub if you do."

Shiena blinked. "You'll what?"

"I'll turn you into a shrub," Suzu repeated. "Whether I mean that or not is for you to ponder, but for your safety, it's better if you just do as I say."

Though there were too many boxes in the way for Shiena to see her, she glanced sideways at what she thought was Suzu's direction. "Well, okay, then…"

With the soft sounds of Suzu rummaging through books to fill the background, Shiena obediently went to the corner, effortlessly hefting the two boxes up to get to the one at the bottom. Setting the short stack aside, she opened it, finding yet another mess of books, more or less arranged in such a way that they would all fit in the box. "So, what's the title?"

"I believe he's just looking for any translation of 'Journey to the West' we can find," Suzu said.

"'Journey to the West,'" Shiena repeated. "Got it."

Just then, a heavy sliding sound like something being pushed aside emanated from Suzu's corner of the room, and Shiena guessed that she must have finished going through the first box. With a mildly impressed huff at Suzu's speed, Shiena began her own search.

For what felt to her like a minute, there was no exchange of words between them, and only the sounds of both hardback and paperback books sliding and bumping against each other seemed to fill the dusty air. Every now and then Shiena felt the urge to look back and check if Suzu was still even there, but she could hear the other girl's progress more than her own breathing and decided against it every time.

Eventually, though, after the third of fourth soft grumble of unease, Shiena came across a small pocketbook in the corner. Its front and back covers seemed to have been torn off the spine. "Shutou-san?"

"Yes?" Suzu answered.

"I found this small book here," Shiena said, raising the book a bit above her head, "but there's nothing on the spine and the covers seem to have been torn off."

Suzu's digging paused for half a second before she made her reply. "Open it and read something out."

One of Shiena's eyebrows quirked in Suzu's direction at the instruction, but her hands nonetheless pushed the book open at some point near the beginning. "…Uh, let's see… 'Lucentio:,'" she began awkwardly, "'Sirrah, come hither, 'tis no time to jest, and therefore frame your manners to the time. Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life, puts my apparel and—"

"Oh, I can recognize those names," Suzu said. "That's 'The Taming of the Shrew,' one of Shakespeare's plays."

The name rang a bell. "'Shakespeare?'"

"The same man who wrote 'Romeo and Juliet,'" Suzu said. "He's from Europe, so it's likely he's better known in the west than here."

"I see." Shiena skimmed through a few more pages. The language was too outdated for her to understand completely, but she found herself taking an inexplicable interest in it. "Too bad it's not what we're looking for, huh?"

She could hear Suzu stand up. "That's fine, though," she said, holding up a thin red book. "I found it. We can leave now."

"Oh, okay."

Just as Shiena was about to place the small script book back into the box it came from, Suzu spoke up again. "Actually, I think you can keep that."

The book stops halfway in. "Huh?"

"I'm a bit rusty on the business laws thanks to having too many ways to get around them," Suzu said, her voice still strangely light and conversational despite the topic, "and frankly I can't quite bring myself to care too much to worry anyway, but I think I'm not supposed to sell that book anymore."

"Why not?" Shiena asked.

Suzu shrugged as she answered. "That's a pretty old copy, so the cover was probably just worn out, but stripped books like those are supposed to go through this process called 'pulping'—basically destroying them for recycling or keeping people from trying to sell them again. It's a little complicated, but in a store like this, I hardly ever send any books out to go. Take that as a gift if you want."

As the final sentence rolled out of Suzu's mouth, Shiena couldn't help but send her a dubious look while she pulled the book back out of the box. "So it's fine if this turns out to be illegal?"

Another shrug. "I highly doubt I'd find myself in a situation I can't escape from by giving you that. Shall we go?"

"And just leave these boxes here?" Shiena stood up and paced toward the door anyway.

"We can clean them up later," Suzu said. "I don't want to keep the guy waiting."

Without another word more of conversation, they exit the room, and Suzu made for the door to the store area before stopping just as her hand reached the lever. She looked back to send Shiena an appreciative smile. "Thanks for helping me out, by the way."

The thought to smile back briefly crossed Shiena's mind, but she didn't entertain it long enough to pull it off before replying.

"No problem. If anything, I gained more than you did." She pulled up her newly-claimed pocketbook to illustrate her point.

A short laugh escaped through Suzu's nose. "So I see you did," she said, mirth laced into her voice. "At any rate, I should get going. I'll be back in a minute to give you something else, though."

Shiena's eyebrows lifted. "It's not another present out of the kindness of your heart, is it?"

"You'll see," Suzu said before finally heading out the door.

By the time it had closed, Shiena had stepped to the side of the hallway and leaned her shoulder on the wall to wait for Suzu to finish. In her idleness, she found herself lifting the corners of her lips every now and then, only to quickly stop herself with a mental slap once it occurred to her what she was actually doing.

She sighed inwardly, disgusted at her own social incompetence, when it clicked in her mind that she was practicing smiling.

Surely she wasn't so bad at talking to people that she needed to rehearse basic facial expressions. And yet frowning, rolling her eyes and sighing seemed to come to her so naturally. It was disappointing and more than a little grim, especially when she recalled that a certain someone who was constantly hounded by vampire hunters smiled more in a day than she could in a year.

As she was about to bury her face in her hands after the realization, a muffled thud resounded from somewhere behind her, followed by a high-pitched yelp. A name popped into Shiena's head instantly.

"Takechi."

It took Shiena all of five seconds to return to the door of her room and pull it open, and when she found Otoya curled up on the floor next to her bed and clutching her skull with a wince, her expression didn't become any less deadpan.

She said nothing when Otoya finally looked up at her from her position on the floor. For someone who had woken up by crashing her head onto a solid surface, her eyes were unsettlingly bright, like nothing had happened at all.

"Shiena-chan!" she says, rolling onto her feet and walking—no, _skipping—_to Shiena. "Good evening."

"Good afternoon, you mean," Shiena said, discreetly taking a tentative step backwards. "I think you might have gotten up a bit too early, but I know it wasn't exactly your choice."

"You saw that, huh?" Otoya began to chuckle. "I guess I should ask Shutou-san if I can trade the bed for a futon."

"Oh, speaking of which…" Shiena presented her book. "Shutou-san gave me this a few minutes ago. She couldn't sell it anymore."

Producing a curious hum, Otoya bent to see the front of the book. The title of the work was still on the very first page, but the font was so tiny she had to inch her head close to read it. "'The Taming of the Shrew.' Shakespeare?"

"Yeah." Shiena allowed Otoya to snatch the book from her hand and flick through the pages. "I take it you've heard of him too, then."

Eyes still on the book, Otoya laughed in a way that sounded uncharacteristically lofty. "Of course I do! He and his works are pretty popular and people just won't stop talking about how they're masterpieces or something like that, but take it from me, Shiena-chan," she closed the book, "they're full of century-old sexual innuendo."

Shiena looked at the book in Otoya's hand, as if doing so would tell her whether or not it was just another set of lies that the quirky vampire conjured up. "You'd be one to know, huh?"

Otoya giggled and patted Shiena's shoulder. "You know me too well!"

No sooner had Otoya retracted her hand than Suzu poked her head through the door that Shiena neglected to shut behind her. "Au contraire, Takechi-san. Kenmochi-san likely still sees you as quite the puzzle."

"Oh, Shutou-san." Shiena courteously pulled the door open for her. "You're finished with business?"

"For the meantime," Suzu said. "Should Takechi-san accompany us while I give you what I mentioned earlier?"

Otoya looked as if she'd just seen someone receive thousands of yen in cash out of nowhere. "_More _presents? Shiena-chan, it's like you and Shutou-san have gotten really friendly overnight!"

Suzu laughed. "Kenmochi-san's reaction was much like yours, but again, it's nothing like that."

"It's for something way more foreboding, then," Otoya concluded.

Suzu said nothing; only shook her head and gestured for them to follow her up the flight of stairs at the end of the hallway.

* * *

Shiena wasn't sure if she was supposed to be underwhelmed or delighted.

Most of the items on Suzu's list were easy to find in local stores, and it had only taken Shiena and Otoya about six hours to locate and purchase all but two of them. Going to the nearest mall might have cut that time to a third, but given the skylights and reflective surfaces that would give Otoya away in a heartbeat, it was too great a risk to even set foot in there.

With a hard half-glare, she looked over the paper. Otoya had been given the 'honor' of crossing out the items on the list, which was why erratic zigzagging lines had reduced most of the writing to illegible scrawls, save for '5 grams of 24-karat gold,' 'aloe leaves,' and '8 grams of sylvanite,' the last of which only having been spared because Suzu herself had already drawn a line through it before the whole search began. The longer she stared, less sense it seemed to make.

There'd always been something about Suzu that made her seem like she was always one step ahead of everyone—like she could effortlessly adapt to anything for which she hadn't already prepared. It was hard to tell if it was because of her nigh-unbreakable serenity or how she managed or be aware—but not wary—of everything around her. She could read everything while she herself was impossible to read, and Shiena knew she'd never be able to guess if everything just happened to go as Suzu would have liked it or if she'd take every unexpected development in stride and run with it.

Why, then, had she made this test so easy? There wasn't a single item on the list that Shiena and Otoya even had to leave town for. Around the time the third hour had passed, they'd even been able to pass by Suzu's house and drop a few of the items off, and Suzu herself unmistakably hadn't been shocked at how quickly they progressed, receiving the items with the usual polite smile and even an offering of a bit of the tea she'd been having at the time. It was almost suspicious.

Yes, suspicious. That was how Shiena should've felt about the whole thing. Given Suzu's initial apprehension with allowing Otoya into her home and how amicable she suddenly became afterwards, it seemed only right to be wary.

With a heavy breath, Shiena put the list back in her pocket, stirred out of her troubled contemplation when she finally noticed Otoya quietly staring at her neck. Her lack of energy this past hour had been a little disconcerting.

"What is it?" Shiena said.

Before answering, Otoya tilted her head and squinted. "We should get you a scarf or a choker or something."

Shiena frowned. "Things like chokers have a bit of a bad connotation among werewolves, you know."

"Psh, you're not a werewolf," Otoya said, slapping Shiena's back jestingly.

"Yeah, yeah, half-werewolf. Same thing." She pushed Otoya's hand away with her elbow. "But whatever I am, why would I need anything around my neck?"

Otoya's lips cracked into a grin. "Well, your braids aren't gonna cover it."

"Aren't going to cover… oh, no way…" Almost automatically, Shiena's hand shot up to move her braid closer to her neck, and her eyes darted around the street as she hoped no one was staring.

Beside her, Otoya just continued grinning. "Don't worry too much about the bite marks, Shiena-chan," she said. "Your braids actually do a good job of hiding them from the back and the sides."

"Okay, then," Shiena said. "Once we're done with Shutou-san's list, we'll take a little detour and get something for me."

"Yay!" Otoya cheered. "You'd look so cute with it on!"

"Shut up," Shiena said, looking pointedly at the ground and scrambling for a change of topic. "Our next stop's right around the corner. Aloe leaves, right?"

Otoya nodded. "Yep! Never expected that they'd have a place that sold them, though."

"Same here, really," Shiena said, "though we're buying a whole aloe vera plant. Somehow that seems less absurd than only buying leaves."

They turned. "Do we really have to buy the whole plant, though?" Otoya asks. "Can't we just ask to _pick_ the leaves?"

Shiena suppressed the urge to roll her eyes as she held a glass door open. "Well, I know you won't listen to me if I try to stop you, so feel free to try."

This new store that they entered looked to be roughly the same size as Suzu's book shop, though the shelves were much larger and stronger, specially structured and angled to hold potted saplings, shoots, and sprouts beneath their own skylight. The scent in the air was a strange mix of moist dirt, vegetation, the usual recycled indoor air and a very faint hint of floor wax. It wasn't much of a change in atmosphere from the warm, bright outside—which probably would've been pleasant to them if they were human—but somehow Shiena felt refreshed and at home.

Otoya, meanwhile, wasted no time in searching for the shopkeeper, walking around briskly.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Shiena said, following behind at half the haste.

"I've been under the sun for hours," Otoya answered. "So I want to get this finished as soon as possible so I can finally get some nice shade."

Shiena's eyebrow rose. "I'm not used to seeing you like this, Takechi."

Otoya turned around as if to answer, but her eye had caught something apparently more interesting to her left. She approached that instead, and all Shiena could do was follow.

Judging from the apron and gloved hands, it was the shopkeeper—a young man with glasses and close-cut, brown hair—who had been in the middle of placing a potted bamboo shoot on a shelf when Otoya had cut to the chase and asked for the potted aloe vera. He asked for a moment before walking a short way across the store to pick up a small red pot, which contained a strange plant with leaves that Shiena likened to the spouts of a geyser.

"This is the only one we have right now," he said, holding the pot to Otoya. "Will it be enough?"

Otoya studied it with furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. "Maybe… Shiena-chan, what do you think?"

"It's the only thing we'll be able to find," Shiena answered. "We don't really have much of a choice here either way." She took Suzu's credit card out from her pocket and handed it out to the shopkeeper, though he only put on an apologetic smile and politely declined it.

"Sorry," he said. "We're not accepting credit cards here."

Shiena's expression got caught somewhere between a frown and a surprised stare. "You don't accept credit cards?"

The shopkeeper shrugged. "Afraid so. We're planning to change that sometime in the future, but right now it can't really be done."

"That's a problem," Shiena muttered. "We don't really have anything in cash, much less a checkbook…"

Otoya pulled Shiena to her side and looked at her meaningfully. "I'm sure we can make some," she paused to put weight in the last word, "negotiations?"

Shiena's eyebrow furrowed. "Excuse me?"

Her response was a wink. "I'll handle this, Shiena-chan. You can just go take a look around; I'll be done in a minute."

"Ahaha, absolutely not." Shiena grabbed Otoya's wrist and forcefully pulled it down along with the rest of Otoya, so that their faces were within whispering distance. "What are you thinking?"

"Geez, I'm not going to hurt him!" Otoya said. "I mean, it _would _make things easier, but you'll get mad at me if I do!"

"Then what is it?"

"Can you just trust me on this? It's not that big a deal!"

Shiena looked to the side and sighed. "You swear you won't do anything stupid?"

Otoya traced an X over her chest. "Cross my heart."

With one last suspicious look, Shiena let go of Otoya's wrist and began to walk to the end of the aisle. "I'll be keeping an eye on you, got it?"

"Got it!" Otoya saluted.

With that, Shiena found post to lean on while she watched Otoya talk to the poor beleaguered shopkeeper with all of her usual energy. After what seemed like ten seconds, someone approached her—a bespectacled girl with hair blacker than Otoya's and blue eyes cool as rain. She spoke to Shiena with a businesslike calmness.

"Excuse me," she said. "Is the clerk busy at the moment?"

"Uh, um…" Shiena looked over at Otoya, who now had her arm slung over the shoulders of the aforementioned shopkeeper. "Well, my friend is certainly keeping him preoccupied."

The girl followed Shiena's gaze. Her pigtails were curled at the end, and they swung with every movement of her head. "The girl in the ponytail?"

"Yeah, that's her," Shiena said, "but we're not exactly _friends _per se. We were just instructed by the same person to go get some aloe leaves. It's easier for me to refer to her as my friend than my acquaintance or something."

"I see," the girl said. "What is she doing?"

"Trying to strike a deal with him, I think," Shiena said. "The thing is, the only way either of us is able to pay for anything is through a credit card that we were given for this whole task. Unfortunately, we just learned that this place doesn't accept those. Not sure what she's planning, though."

"A credit card for a task as small as this, though?"

Shiena looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"If all you had to do was buy a plant, then why couldn't she just have given you the cash for it?" The girl pushed her glasses up with a finger. "Is that all you had to do?"

"Well, no," Shiena answered. "We also have to go get some actual 24-karat gold after this. It's ridiculous. Why do you ask?"

There was a pause before the girl gave an answer. She watched Otoya with the exact same blank expression that she had on before they'd even spoken. "…Nothing, really," she said. "Just trying to make conversation while waiting." Shiena didn't know what she had seen, but her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she continued watching.

Shiena looked back at Otoya. Her hand was cupping the clerk's chin. "What is she—"

The words had just come out of her mouth when Otoya moved to whisper in his ear. The pot he had been holding fell into her hands as if the clerk's own arms had grown limp.

Shiena's eyes went wide, and she looked at the girl she'd been speaking to moments before, finding an expression just like her own. Her mind went scrambling for something to say. "U-uh, y-you saw that…?"

"Yes, I did," she answered. "It seems your friend has… succeeded."

"I, uh, I guess she—"

"Shiena-chan, look!"

Once again grinning like a child, Otoya ran back to Shiena, presenting the pot like a birthday present. "I got it! For free!"

The impulse to bring her palm to her own face coursed through Shiena's arm, but she somehow managed to crush it and speak with only a slight tone of irritation. "Great job, Takechi," she said, tugging at Otoya's sleeve. "Now let's get going. Last one on the list is the gold, and I know that one's the hardest one to get."

As Shiena had feared, the bespectacled girl spoke again. "Please wait a moment."

Otoya stopped, unheeding of Shiena's prompts to continue walking. "Yes?"

"You two are looking for pure gold?" she asked.

"That's right!" Otoya said. "Did Shiena-chan tell you that?"

"She did," the girl said. "I have a friend who's been looking to sell something of his that he thinks is made of the kind of gold you're looking for. He's willing to part with it for cheap."

"Thank you," Shiena said, "but we're going to have to—"

"Take you up on that offer!" Otoya finished.

Shiena turned away to growl and pinch at the bridge of her nose.

* * *

It was an old manor conspicuously placed on the top of a hill—vaguely European-inspired architecture, and aged enough for the paint to have begun peeling off the front walls. The glass windows on were covered in dust and barely transparent, while the black, plated roofing at the top seemed about ready to fall apart. At the base, a thin layer of moss had begun to creep upwards. Shiena only had Kaminaga's word that someone was living there to make her think so. In all other aspects, it looked completely abandoned.

'Kaminaga' was the only name that the bespectacled girl had given her and Otoya on their ride there, and no matter how many conversational tactics Otoya used on her to coax her into revealing her given name, Kaminaga stayed adamant about hiding it. At first, Shiena had been hoping that it was her who hadn't been suspicious of them, but with how dubious she was acting, it almost seemed comforting that it gave them a reason to suspect her back, in an odd, coldly reciprocative way.

Otoya, though, hadn't been affected at all by how distant Kaminaga remained, and Shiena had been meaning to ask her about it since the moment they stepped out of the taxi. With how friendly she'd acted, it was like she had some sort of overpowering confidence that nothing could harm her. 58 years of escaping supernatural authorities probably had to do with that much self-assurance.

The sun had begun to set into the horizon, too, coating the sky with a warm red glow that Shiena guessed in retrospect might've rejuvenated Otoya enough to be as friendly as she was. Shiena herself, though, still hadn't quite become completely nocturnal.

It was a quiet walk from the gates to the front door of the house, filled with curious sightseeing—the twilit view from the hill _was _nice, Shiena had to admit—but in about a minute, Kaminaga had stopped and rapped on the black double-doors with the metal door-knocker. It was an expertly crafted wolf's head, biting onto a thick ring, and with a chill creeping up her spine, Shiena could tell it was made of silver. The flat, metallic knocking sound seemed to reverberate within the wall of the manor like echoes in a hollow cave before Kaminaga spoke up again.

"Kashiwabara-san," she said, raising her voice, "I have a few visitors for you. They're interested in your golden statue."

A sound resembling a reply came from inside, though eerily similar to the creak of an old wooden board, and even for Shiena, with the sharpness of her hearing, no words were coherent.

Kaminaga, of course, was undeterred from the lack of response. "We're coming in," she said.

She led them into the entrance, and Shiena was the last to step in, cautious of nearly everything about the manor interior. The quiet atmosphere and the dust on the surfaces of several pieces of furniture reminded her of the storage room back at Suzu's home, although it was distinctly colder here, and the smell of cardboard and printing paper was replaced by that of aged wood and cold stone. Not even half as welcoming.

When Shiena said Kaminaga's name, she had a number of reasons for choosing to avoid honorifics. Her inherent sketchiness, the refusal to divulge a full name, and even Shiena's general uncouthness all played a part in that decision, but mostly she hoped it conveyed that Kaminaga was not someone she would put too much trust in.

"Kaminaga," she said over the groans of the shutting double-doors behind them, "is this 'Kashiwabara-san' the only person living in this manor?"

"No," Kaminaga answered, continuing as she escorted them to a wide, twisting staircase at the back of the living room. "He has a few servants and housekeepers, and sometimes a few guests stay over. At the moment, though, I imagine most of his servants have left for their other duties, and I believe you two have been his first guests in a while."

The three of them stopped at the base of the staircase. "Which means," Shiena said, "that we're the only ones here?"

Kaminaga gave them a wordless nod. Shiena had nearly missed it while she'd been too busy studying the footprints on the steps of the staircase ahead of them, but she reverted her attention just as Kaminaga started to walk away from them. "Kashiwabara-san is in the room to the left after you climb these stairs," she said. "Make sure to knock before you enter."

"Hold on," Shiena said. "Where are you going?"

Kaminaga's pace didn't slow down. "I didn't realize how long the drive here had taken. If I don't go now, I'll be running late for a meeting with someone. Don't worry. Kashiwabara-san is easy to talk to. You'll do fine without me."

The doors shut with that final word, leaving Shiena and Otoya to themselves in the quietude of the living room. It was just the opportunity that Shiena had been looking for, but something about the circumstances made it difficult for her to simply take.

It was doable, though. "Takechi, I've got a couple of questions."

Otoya already had her foot on the third step or the staircase when she looked at Shiena to answer. "What's up?"

"First of all, why are you so open to Kaminaga?" Shiena asked, climbing to join Otoya. "She saw what you did back there when you got the aloe vera plant, and she's been acting really suspicious ever since then."

"Then what?" Otoya said. "She suspects me of being a vampire?"

Shiena paused, and then blew a lock of hair out of her face. "Yes."

Otoya's laugh was so loud in the space of the manor that it echoed. "Oh, Shiena-chan, you really don't have much of an opinion of me, do you?"

"I have _quite _the opinion of you, actually," Shiena said. "For example, you're annoyingly affectionate, dense, way too careless about how and where you use your powers, and today I learned that you're stupidly fond of giving people the benefit of the doubt. I also find it very uncomfortable any time your face gets within ten inches of my neck, especially after all those times you tried to sneak a snack."

"That's not what I meant!" Otoya said. "Geez, you really don't like me, do you?"

"Gosh, I wonder what gave it away."

Otoya frowned at her. "Anyway, Shiena-chan, you really need to have a little more faith. Even if Kaminaga-san turns out to be a vampire hunter, it's not like she'd be the first one to succeed in finally ending my un-life." They reached the top of the staircase. "She's too young and I'm too clever. Even when I make dumb decisions I can scrounge up enough smartness to get out in one piece."

As she finished speaking, Otoya put her hand on the handle of the door—bronze-plated and slightly rusted over—and twisted it down. Neither of them had expected what they found behind it.

The room was empty.

Shiena had been anticipating a lie to reveal itself at some point, but she hadn't foreseen her stomach dropping once it had revealed itself.

At the back of her mind, she knew she could've rationalized. Maybe Kaminaga had mistaken right for left. Maybe it was Otoya who had made the mistake, and Shiena hadn't noticed over their conversation. Maybe Kashiwabara simply liked to stand in completely empty rooms sometimes to greet his visitors. Maybe knocking on the doors was some kind of auditory key to actually entering this room.

Unfortunately, all of the consternation from the past few minutes had boiled over, and all she could do was grab Otoya and resist the urge to punch herself in the face as she raced down the stairs.

Otoya was understandably confused. "Shiena-chan?!"

"It was a trap," Shiena said. "Kaminaga did a _great_ job tricking you to come here. I just _know _that she's trying to kill you now. We need to get out before—"

"Shiena-chan, stop!"

A forceful yank backwards forced Shiena into a halt and nearly sent her tumbling down the last few steps. "_What?!"_

The tone Otoya used with Shiena at that moment was the same one a person used to deal with a wild animal. "I know this is a trap, okay?" she said, holding her hands up placatingly, "but we can't just run off like this."

Shiena clutched at her head in a fit of panic and frustration. "Then how—"

"Not like this!" Otoya yelled, fists clenched. "I know this trap, and I'm telling you right now that we need to go back up the stairs and escape through—"

She cut herself off the next instant, eyes wide, and before a question could even begin to form in Shiena's mind, Otoya moved like lightning. Somehow within a second, she was able to put Shiena beneath herself and an antique sofa that she'd toppled over, just as a burst of fire and noise erupted from the corners of the second floor and the walls around them.

For five long seconds, Shiena was frozen in shock. Both of her ears were filled with a deafening ring, and she could've sworn one of her eyes didn't work properly, but eventually her body sent her a message that snapped her out of her stupor.

She couldn't breathe.

Her mouth opened automatically, but the air was already thick with smoke by then, and even if it weren't there was an immense amount of weight on her chest. She recognized the source of the pressure with her good eye.

Otoya's limp body was pressed between her and the sofa she'd used as a shield. Shoving both of them off of her body was a simple matter for Shiena when she was high on adrenaline, and the moment she got up, she inhaled and choked on the smoke.

Despite the coughing fit that followed, she had enough mind to pick Otoya up to hoist her over her shoulder and make a beeline for the double doors that had already begun to burn off their hinges. A piece of the decorative wooden arch on the ceiling collapsed right in front of her and set the carpets of the floor on fire with it, effectively stopping her escape. She cursed under her breath and coughed afterward.

The pause sent her into a moment of clarity. Through all the fumes and debris, there was a clear route of escape that she knew she was nimble enough to get through herself, but to do so, she would have to leave Otoya.

The temptation in the choice was powerful. Since she'd met Suzu, Otoya seemed like an accessory—a little addition to everything she had that would make things a little easier in the right situation. And now, Shiena thought, she was even less than that.

Now that she was about to die, Otoya looked like a daily nuisance that, every few weeks, would bite at Shiena's neck and make her veins feel like her blood had been replaced with lava. She was dead weight; a leech; poison.

But when she'd convinced herself to leave her and move on with her life, doing the world a favor by helping kill one of the worst monsters in existence, she actually looked at Otoya, and the urge to punch herself in the face resurfaced.

Now, of all times, she saw the same girl in the alleyway, about to die and just barely able to rasp for help. And Shiena, poor, unlucky, gullible Shiena, was the only one who heard her and went to her aid, and as thanks, she had gotten herself bitten in the neck by a vampire that she never expected would still be around her over a month later.

Cursing at herself, Shiena picked Otoya back up and leapt through the flames.


End file.
